It might be argued that if you took the trouble to place a copyright notice on the part, you would require it to be readable.
OTOH it again raises the issue of the mythical "already printed" flag - or was it the first time this particular version of the
file was printed ? (Obviously the model itself having been printed as part of another file would not count, as there
would be no way to automatically crossreference the two instances)

mkroeker: Yes, it was the first time the "shapeways retail" version was ordered so you are correct on the already printed flag, it wouldn't have made a difference in this case.

And I'm not even saying the rejection was wrong according to the design standards. What I am saying is this stl file had successfully printed as a sub-model of other models twice before, leading me to trust the design. Now, a different person looks at it a rejects it. THAT is the problem- no consistency in the pre-print checking process. And Shapeways has until now offered no ideas of what they might be doing to work on this, or even said that it is a necessary evil at this point in the technology and cannot be fixed.

I think I would be happy with an acknowledgement if it just can't be helped, IF the customer who gets a rejection message was told what the situation is.

Academic. I have re-uploaded the model with the copyright notice removed. As I understand the process no one could master a mold off it anyway because of the shape of the model so the copyright notice is not really needed.

I ordered the same Tinkercad generated model in FD, WSF, and brass in the same order, and all had the same detached shell problem. Bottom line is that three different people, not necessarily all at Shapeways, checked the model and only the person who checked the WSF caught the problem. And this is a critical problem as opposed to the detail vs. embossing/engraving stuff. It seems like it's a lot of duplicated effort with a checking success of only 33%. Ouch!

Something just occurred to me. At several times in this thread (I think it was this thread) it has been mentioned that a small piece of a model could come loose and mess up a whole batch of SWF because it's a loose shell, which is a cause of rejection. How is that different than a print of the following model (call it a candy cane):

As it prints from the bottom, at some point the layers of nylon powder reach the point that the end of the curved section starts to print. So the first layer is one grain of nylon thick on the first pass, two on the second, etc. So why, when that end of the candy cane curve first starts to print, doesn't it get swept into someone else's model like an unconnected shell?

Of course, on this model the print orientation would be adjusted, but it is an illustration. As I understand it Shapeways loads the build box with multiple models so every time the SWF machine runs there must be times there are portions of partially fused models only one or two layers thick just sitting there.

So is a loose shell a rejection because it potentially can ruin a print run, or because there is a potential for the customer to complain and want a refund?

Something just occurred to me. At several times in this thread (I think it was this thread) it has been mentioned that a small piece of a model could come loose and mess up a whole batch of SWF because it's a loose shell, which is a cause of rejection. How is that different than a print of the following model (call it a candy cane):

So is a loose shell a rejection because it potentially can ruin a print run, or because there is a potential for the customer to complain and want a refund?

The idea that a loose piece could cause a problem with a WSF print is an absolutely ridiculous concept. As some of these items print up they could have at one point dozens or even hundreds of unsecured little sintered pieces that will eventually meet up as the print progresses. It's a lousy excuse to not print an item. That said, I have had no rejections in the past 3-4 weeks and some of my more established models are selling fairly well. But I still don't dare put any effort or money into advertising until I can be certain that such effort won't be wasted.

I my case, at least, I understood the problem to be more of a print with a potential missing portion problem. If a shell came loose when taking the tray apart I would hardly expect an operator to try and figure out where the extra bits came from.

Weeeeelp, just got a rejection this morning for a ring that's printed successfully three times. It's only slightly forgivable because each ring size is a different upload, and this size hadn't been ordered yet. So a 'printed' flag wouldn't have done anything. But I mean... come on, you can see a photo of the printed ring and everything!

Even better, thanks to this new 'disabling materials' nonsense, I can't even print it in Stainless Steel again until I get service to sort this out.

This thread scares me when I read everyday , another rejection , another ... for products that printed. How can you tell users "print your model" then after you print it second time it is "not printable" ?! How can mathematical correct model be measured different by different people ? Eyesight problem ? Low salary ?

How about telling the one that verify the models that some designers that "they check" with their attitude off , are poorer than them , and even living for selling that object he for "he`s ego not paid well" reject it , then rejecting someone food on the table , paying rent so on.

Can you share the reason they gave ? "Thin walls" , or "engraving will run together" or something ? (Just wondering if the ring size have affected overall scale to the point that a feature actually became marginal ?)
With the metals done by a production partner (IIRC), pictures in a shapeways shop are probably not checked. (Would be interesting to know if
shapeways employees cross-check any rejections received from production partners before passing them on ??)

(And yes, the "good idea" behind automatic disabling of materials might be implemented better with just some kind of warning about potential
failure)

I don't want to start a flame war, but I have to agree with the production team on this one.

I have items in my shop that I uploaded 3+ years ago, and they printed successfully. If today I rescale (slightly larger) one of those items, I do not (and should not) expect that the production team would search thru my entire shop (300+ models) to notice that "oh, it worked in another size 3 years ago". There is also the topic of "grandfathered" models - ones where the rules have been tightened such that an older model no longer fits the rules.

I will grant that it would be nice if all the sizes of an item could be listed together as one product, with simply a dropdown for the desired size. That would relieve (a portion) of the problem you're having here.

There is also a proposal that has been made (entered by yours truly) to allow the customer to select some multiplication factor to enable re-sizing an item before ordering. I have recently come to debate the wisdom of that request - we can discuss that elsewhere.

But for today, each model stands alone. Since THIS COPY of this item has never been checked, then it needs to be.

As a shop owner myself, yes it is frustrating to me when some 'copy' of a model is failed for a different reason than the original. A good bit of this is due to different people checking the item at different times. YES, I would like to see a higher level of consistency with the checking. YES, I'd like to see some automated, (but non-binding) software rule-based validations. But, at the same I appreciate the fact that Shapeways is working HARD to make printing more repeatable - unfortunately that means still more rejections in my future for models where I keep pushing the rules.

Patience, Persistance, Politeness - the 3Ps will help us get us to Perfect Printed Products

We're going to have some tips in the Shop Owner challenge that should help with some of this, too! Thanks for chiming in Stony. We know this process is challenging and we really appreciate your understanding as the process evolves.

What annoys me isn't that they didn't go through all my models to ensure that it would print. What annoys me - once again - is the total lack of consistency. Three times in a row operators looked at this model and said 'yep, looks fine'. The fourth time, they had a look and said 'woah, that's no good, reject'. Even without a previous order history to pull up, a printable model should be a printable model, and a non-printable one should be a non-printable one. Full stop. I'm getting very tired of different operators' different opinions influencing whether a model is can be printed or not.

Again, the human-powered checks are not performed on models that haven't been sold yet, and for all they know, the geometry from one model to the next could be entirely different. They don't see YOUR workflow to know that one is "merely" a size difference, and it's invalid for them to assume that it is.

Quote:

different operators' different opinions influencing whether a model is can be printed or not

100% with you on that part. I regularly campaign for (more) consistency also.

Patience, Persistance, Politeness - the 3Ps will help us get us to Perfect Printed Products

Because for one of my models that was produced, without any reported problems for quite a while, suddenly last Christmas time I got numerous rejection emails with differing reasons. Eventually in Feburary (after the christmas rush) the model was do-able again.

Since then none have sold (apparently)

So yep, a single consistent reason is understandable, but differing reasons during a busy period, to me is too frustrating to even bother anymore. I got enough stuff going on in my life that I've just walked away from the what I still see as the rejection lottery - people lied to me, I don't trust liers.

@Paul.. please. I was responding only to the "Multiple Sizes" sub-topic above, not to the overall subject.

I fully acknowledge the fact that the application of the rules has been inconsistent over time. Make NO mistake: I'm frustrated over it also. I just haven't aired my frustrations in public.

I would vote that we split this thread up into sub-topics so that we can keep the discussion(s) a little more focused. There are several aspects of rejections that need to be addressed separately: Lumping all of it together hides the complexity of the issues.

Rules that don't make sense to the designer(s)

Inconsistent application of rules

Items rejected before printing

Items that pose a risk to the printer itself

Items that break during cleaning - after printing

Items that break during shipping

Model 1 is "the same" as Model 2 - why was Model 2 rejected?

Affect on designers vs customers

Insert your favorite topic here

[Updated on: Fri, 04 October 2013 23:13 UTC]

Patience, Persistance, Politeness - the 3Ps will help us get us to Perfect Printed Products

The multiple sizes, more than likely has summat to do with size/strength ratio before finalising, i.e. smaller in stainless or silver works better than larger due to the 'wet sand' or fragile wax print before infusion or casting.

I would vote that we split this thread up into sub-topics so that we can keep the discussion(s) a little more focused. There are several aspects of rejections that need to be addressed separately: Lumping all of it together hides the complexity of the issues.

[/list]

But lumping it all together shows that the the issue desperately needs to be addressed, and we haven't had much more than a cursory nod from the powers that be at Shapeways. If they do start to address this problem then by all means, we can start breaking it up. Until then we need to keep this protest as big and as loud as we can. I'm 'occupying Shapeways' and have been here for ten months. Stony, I would prefer that you not shill for them on this thread. Let them speak for themselves.

I think we would need some kind of digest thread or wiki that collects results from this thread - all the snippets of information buried in the
"but I want my newbie project printed" or "and by the way how do you clean" detours. And on the topic of "shilling" - as long as no one really
in the know speaks up, I for one am happy to follow the reasoning of someone who appears to be a little closer to the scene than most of us.
(Which certainly does not mean that I believe every explanation put forward in this way)

The multiple sizes, more than likely has summat to do with size/strength ratio before finalising, i.e. smaller in stainless or silver works better than larger due to the 'wet sand' or fragile wax print before infusion or casting.

Paul

That was a plausible explanation until a Size 7 was also rejected last night. Someone in service is just screwing with me now.

For stainless and varites of stainless, I believe there is just the one production partner, ExOne, although by now they may have licensed out their proprietory methods to other manufacturers. Haven't a clue about silver though,

It would be good to know who does the final checks though, as they are the people that should be communicating any issues with model found at production time - designer errors like detached shells and thin parts etc are picked up by Shapeways staff before the model file is sent to the print partner.

Stony, I would prefer that you not shill for them on this thread. Let them speak for themselves.

Please keep it civilized without blows below the belt.
Stony has been a very helpful community member for several years.
He suffers as much from these issues as any of you.

His suggestion makes sense, each issue needs to be handled separately to reach the best outcome.

Besides, shill is technically incorrect.
Stony is a moderator and that is fully disclosed.
He is also part of the Beta team that helps to tackle all sort of situations that occur on an ever growing and evolving site.

Full disclosure before I would be shilling myself:
I was once a community member that suffered form numerous bugs and site flaws I just made sure to voice proper solutions and ideas where I could.
As a result, I am now both a member of the Beta team, as well as a Forum Moderator.
This is all on a voluntary base and by choice.

We try to help where we can and relay as much info to the right people as possible.
And we're only human, so please be nice.

Stony, I would prefer that you not shill for them (SW) on this thread. Let them speak for themselves.

Maybe we have different understandings of the word 'shill' but think this is harsh. Stony is always positive, it is true and I do not always have the same views, but it is my impression that he always conveys as much as he is able to and he always helps everyone. Imo he is a major plus to the forums.

Quote:

Let them speak for themselves.

But is this not the problem, that they do not participate in these threads? And so we can divide this particular thread up how we like, without meaningful response from people who a) know the facts and b) can change something then it's all just (metaphorical) hot air.

Let me remind everyone the post that I made that started this thread, and the issue that has yet to be resolved:

Roy_Stevens wrote

So a typical product cycle goes like this: I design and refine a new product, print it, occasionally refine it more, print it again, post-process the print including paint, take good photos, upload them, spend some time getting the word out on my new product on message boards, and then the customers start purchasing it and Shapeways REJECTS THE PRINTS!. So all my time is wasted, my name is mud, and I look like a fool. And this has happened more than once. I'm well aware of the design rules and follow them, (thus the I get the prints first time around) but it doesn't seem to matter. So what can I do to prevent this?

And let me put into perspective how I see posts from our esteemed moderators. I feel like I'm picketing outside the congressman's office, and our moderators are like the local P.D. that comes to tell us to calm down and that our congressman is hard at work fixing the problem. So you'll forgive me if say I want to hear from the main office.

Rather than breaking it out at this level, kick it up one and make "Preventing Rejections" its own forum on the same level as "Suggestions". Then the individual cases can still be kept together, and they're all collected in one place.

It's certainly important enough, and has enough interest, to warrant that kind of forum.

I repaired and updated my screwy model with the shell problem. This was the first time I observed the "your model has serious problems so you need to fix it" flag and the "thanks for fixing the model it can now be released for sale" flag status changes. That was kind of cool. It seems that a small extension of the code would allow other flags such as:

"the model has printed before in process A so there's no need to ever check it again in this material" flag

or

"we rejected this model but after communications with desiger it was showm to be a false or non-critical error so no need to ever check it again in this material" flag

or

"we approved or printed this model in process A so it is automatically approved for less stringent processes B, C, X, Y, and Z"

Multiple flag categories may not be necessary in the long run. Eventually a "officially approved for future manufacturing in Processes A, B, C, and etc. should suffice and it should be visible on the model page prior to purchase. Of course changing design rules or uploading a new model would likely reset all flags to zero unless a differential rules check could be developed to transfer previous approval flags to the model revision.

The fly in the ointment is that annoying issue of not always getting successful prints and having to track a success percentage of a print. However I would still consider that to be more of a problem of a lack of process control in the printing department (machine settings, improper calibrations, variabilities in source materials, normal machine and operator variations, etc). Design rules always need to reflect the capabilities and normal process spreads of the printing, operator handling, and shipping (in this case) and not the other way around. If you have a good statistical handle on the overall manufacturing process the design rules and checking processes (manual or automated) should become more straightforward.

I want to give a compliment to Shapeways on my latest rejection. I had a multimodel order where everything had printed except one model which was back in processing so I knew something was wrong. Here was the text:

"We have attempted to print this model several times, but it cannot be cleaned and shipped. The thin wires supporting the seat backs are not sufficient to support the parts during cleaning. Please consider thickening the seats and seat backs to give a sturdier model."

Clear and to the point, and it tells me they tried. The fix to strengthen the portion of the model they refer to is not hard, and I'll correct it later this week. As I've said before, my goal is to make sure my models can print when a customer orders them and this feedback hopefully will allow me to do that and avoid future rejections.

That is an excellent description of a problem. So I would assume that the design met all basic design rules but that this is a special case such that it would be impossible or impractical to have additional design guidelines that might cover this physical arrangement of wires and other structures in the model?

It probably fell into the "wire v. wall" grey area, a difference that seems to defy a rule.

The model was WSF, and the connection was about 1.5mm wide and .8 mm thick and rectangular in cross section, so there was quite a bit more cross section that a 1mm round wire (1.2 sq mm vs, .79 sq mm for a 1mm round) and there were two connection supporting the back of the seat. This is a scale model of a passenger car that railroads used to use, designed to fit into a particular train model made by a particular company- and there are a bunch of these seats in it. http://shpws.me/pgmO.

So now I have a better understanding of how to design a feature like this in the future. If Shapeways can't clean the model because of my design it is defective no matter what the design rules say.

I wonder if they have recently changed how they clean WSF parts. I have some pen parts with deeper cylindrical cavities that used to be filled with powder beyond and inch or so behind the exterior hole. I just got a new batch and they were clean as a whistle to the full depth of the cavity.

For me that's a good thing since it reduces efforts to clean them out upon arrival and it's good for Shapeways since it lets them recycle more powder. My parts are rather robust in comparison to those tiny things you railroad people like to make. But I can imagine for small and delicate parts an improved or different cleaning process can also affect the ability to successfully print and ship parts now that may have been shipped with more residual powder in the past. Or this could all be due to an operator with better cleaning techniques. Anyway, I suppose it's another variable that can affect final success rates.

Why, if a model doesn't meet design criteria according to a Shapeways-Team-member do I receive a mail as follows?

"Hello railNscale,

After taking a closer look, we cannot print one of the models in order 312075 (placed on 10/09/2013).

We've credited €xyz to your account.
You may be able to update and print your model based on the information below.
If you have questions or concerns contact us at: service@shapeways.com. We're happy to talk with you about this rejected model before you update it."

This means that the order is cancelled? Why does Shapweays not allow modifications before cancelling?

In this case the mentioned problems were partially not correct, since the manual quality check made an error (just measuring half the width of a component).

To me this is quite a contrast to the statement of Shapeways as mentioned in the FAQ:"My model uploaded correctly, but after ordering you cannot print it. Why?

3D Printing is both art and science. Our goal is to help you make anything you can imagine, but sometimes your model cannot be printed in the materials you choose at the quality we strive to achieve.

Once you place your order, one of our production engineers will closely examine your model. They will check for printability, but also if the model will be too fragile within shipping and handling. In some cases, we'll try to print a model but find out that it cannot be 3D Printed with certainty, at the quality level you would expect. In all these cases, we will provide you with detailed information on the issue and how to solve it. We're here to help!"

1. If you had several models in your order, only the unprintable one has been cancelled.
2. Fixing actual errors will almost inevitably change the volume of material used, and hence the price.
3. Shapeways would have to set some more or less arbitrary time limit for such fixes or they would be drowned in "dangling" orders soon.
Their business model revolves around efficient mass processing of print orders, which naturally limits the amount of counseling their
engineers can provide to individual customers.
4. If a rejection is clearly in error, and errors do happen especially a shapeways takes on new staff - email service right away - they might get the cancellation removed, or at least be able to issue an additional credit covering the additional shipping cost
5. If the picture you received in the email does not give a clear enough indication about what is wrong or how you could fix it,
email service for clarification.

1. If you had several models in your order, only the unprintable one has been cancelled.
2. Fixing actual errors will almost inevitably change the volume of material used, and hence the price.
3. Shapeways would have to set some more or less arbitrary time limit for such fixes or they would be drowned in "dangling" orders soon.
Their business model revolves around efficient mass processing of print orders, which naturally limits the amount of counseling their
engineers can provide to individual customers.
4. If a rejection is clearly in error, and errors do happen especially a shapeways takes on new staff - email service right away - they might get the cancellation removed, or at least be able to issue an additional credit covering the additional shipping cost
5. If the picture you received in the email does not give a clear enough indication about what is wrong or how you could fix it,
email service for clarification.

1. This is really the big problem. To save shipping costs I order multiple models at once. By this I can reduce the shipping cost to product cost ratio to a more acceptable level of 1 to 4. Yes, most of my models are small. By deleting parts of the total order I am more or less forced to re-order the cancelled products, hence doubling shipping costs.
2. This seems logic. But is often not true. In all the cases of rejections the requested modification was adding 0.1 mm material. In my last order 312075, 2 out of 4 models were rejected because of very local thin matrial issues. After solving these two models the prices of both models went up by 0.00 euro. Especially since SW does not give me money back but instead keeps it and give me a credit instead the potential up-cost of a model could very easily be solved.
3. I regret the one-way direction in this policy. This is in my opinion quite contrary to the image Shapeways wants to promote. Especially with new techniques this is not very helpful for customers. Secondly Shapeways Quality checks are far from robust. I noticed that with my orders that roughly 1 out of 3 remarks by Shapeways are incorrect. By without consulting the designer cancelling of orders is bold. Furthermore I noticed that about half the mentioned problems are not true issues, but merely robustness-issues due to the choice of SW to optimize their production proces. Many models were produced without any issues. And later-on the exact same design features were proven not good enough for production.
4. Well I am awaiting SW's proposal.....
5. Most of the time that seems to be not a big problem. The problem arises when you upload models. I find it difficult to check the uploaded geometry with the tiny screen.

So, why does SW uses 'strict rules' and shows hardly any kind of flexibility towards their customers/designers, and in the same time allow them self to 'optimize their print processes' (stacking, orientating, delaying etc w/o consulting customers resulting in potential quality issues) and still shows not to be able to truly justify models? Is this shaping the future?